View full sizeRandy L. Rasmussen, The OregonianVictor Trinh, 17, (left) and Zane Kelley, 16, are among many who testified about a high school reorganization proposal Tuesday night at Madison High School. "Benson is a place where minority students can flourish," Kelley said. "Jefferson does not offer the education that Benson does. ... Benson is what every Portland Public Schools high school should be."Nearly 300 Portland parents, students and high school alumni turned out Tuesday to tell Superintendent Carole Smith what they think of her proposal to remake the district's nine neighborhood high schools into eight larger, more equitable ones.

The crowd in the Madison High cafeteria and the list of those testifying were packed with fans of Benson High, the city's storied technical school, which would be converted to a two-year tech center under Smith's reorganization plan.

Community meetings

Tuesday's community meeting was the first of two on the proposed high school reorganization. The next one is set for 7 p.m. Tuesday, May 18, at Roosevelt High School, 6941 N. Central St. The Portland School Board is expected to vote on the proposal in June.

So the main message was not surprising: Don't change Benson from a four-year school.

Smith's plan, unveiled April 26, also called for closing Marshall as a comprehensive high school and turning it into a small magnet school.

Smith and Portland School Board members say that if they opt to keep Benson open as a four-year school, they will have to close at least one neighborhood high school in addition to Marshall.

Portland has not closed high schools despite decades of declining enrollment. Four of its nine neighborhood schools have too few students to offer a full range of courses, officials say.

Benson supporters said the district should close one of those less popular schools, not Benson, which enrolls mainly low-income and minority students yet boasts an 88 percent graduation rate.

"By taking away the freshman and sophomore years, you will be taking away the opportunity for students to find their careers and their passions," Benson student Sean Rice testified.

The theme of opposition to change was echoed by the group of speakers who turned out in the next largest number: fans of the three small academies on the Marshall campus.

Current and former students testified that those academies have helped shy students, immigrants and others who could get lost in large high schools to gain skills, confidence and friends.

"Keep Marshall like it is," urged Matthew Lewellan, a senior who told of the powerful turnaround that Marshall's Pauling Academy made in his life.

View full sizeRandy L. Rasmussen, The OregonianSuperintendent Carole Smith (right) and her chief of staff, Zeke Smith, listen to public comments in the first of two community meetings on her reorganization plan. Others said it would be unfair to deny the Marshall neighborhood a high school of its own.

Another theme emerged from the testimony: Some parents and students are upset that a school redesign effort being done in the name of increasing equity yielded a plan that will lead to high schools with a high degree of socioeconomic segregation.

Four schools -- Franklin, Jefferson, Madison and Roosevelt -- would have more than 60 percent of their students eligible for free and reduced-price lunches. Meanwhile, those rates at Cleveland, Grant, Lincoln and Wilson would remain or fall to half that level or reach as low as 10 percent.

"We are still creating the haves and have-nots," said Kim Nickens, president of the parent-teacher organization at Madison High.

Todd Green, parent of elementary students in the Jefferson neighborhood, said, "We see two of the schools that have been struggling the most, Roosevelt and Jefferson, are not being set up equally; they are not being given the same numbers (in projected enrollment)."

Some speakers acknowledged that Portland's high schools are underenrolled but said theirs should stay open. They named Grant, Jefferson and Roosevelt as their choices to be closed.

"'Separate but equal' doesn't work as we create more schools that are separated by socioeconomics," said Polly Kreisberg, a parent of a middle school student whom the plan would rezone to Jefferson High.

"Listening to the articulate Benson students tonight, why are you looking at closing a school that is so successful (Benson) instead of a school that is struggling (Jefferson)?" she said.